Baby Girl Fair Isle Cardigan

I love to knit for babies. Not just for the usual reasons of it being fast and immediately gratifying, but because I love while I’m knitting to think about the baby herself, her budding life and the amazing road ahead of her. I love to think about the explosion of feelings the baby’s parents are experiencing and the cocoon of love they are busy creating for their little one. And I love to think that all of these thoughts and good wishes are soaking right into the gift I’m knitting!

I wanted to design a sweater that would reflect these thoughts, that would feel almost as precious as the baby herself. I wanted it to be delicate and pretty, but practical too, a small version of something that I would want to wear. In short, I wanted to design a super special baby sweater!

Of course a super special baby sweater would have to be made out of something incredibly soft and beautiful and so I turned to Blue Sky’s Royal Alpaca. Spun from a very rare quality of luxury alpaca fiber, this yarn is as sumptuous as cashmere and as singular as the baby herself! Royal Alpaca comes in a vintage palette of gentle colors, from petal pink to warm cocoa, perfect for heirloom baby gear. (You’ll only need one skein for the newborn or 6 month size and two skeins for the 12 month size.)

So things didn’t get too serious, I decided to add a burst of happy color around the yoke in a simple fair isle pattern. When just a little bit of yarn is needed, we love to use mini skeins of embroidery or needlepoint yarn, like Gumnut’s Blossoms crewel yarn. It’s 100% wool and comes in such a huge array of rich and sophisticated colors that choosing four is a real pleasure.

Our Baby Girl Fair Isle Cardigan is sized for newborns, 6 and 12 month olds. Included in the pattern is a complete list of materials, detailed finished measurements, beautiful photographs and thorough instructions for making your own very special sweater.

Materials

Gumnut’s Blossoms, 100% Wool. 1 skein of each color. For the YELLOW colorway use #709, 706, 703 and 990. For the RED colorway use # 857, 829, 787, and 785. For the PINK colorway use #909, 907, 843, and 901.

During some recent site reconstruction your question got deleted, but not lost! For other readers, here's what Jennifer asked…

If I wanted to make the 12 month size and the matching hat (I guess baby size) will 1 skein x 5 colors of the Gumnut's be enough? Or will I need 2 skeins of each color? Thanks!

To answer your question,…I imagine that you're referring to the Little Fair Isle Hat when you say the "matching hat", but they're not actually matching. The fair isle pattern and the yarn is different. You could certainly match the two, however, by using the same yarn and colors. I'm not totally sure if you'll have enough of the Gumnut for both. You may need 10 skeins, but you'll definitely have enough of the Royal Alpaca! (By the way, the twelve month size requires two skeins of Royal Alpaca, not one!)

Thanks so much for your question and please let us know if you have more!

This is a beautiful sweater. I am still wishing for this pattern in larger size. Would love to make this for my 3 year old granddaughter. I haven't found a similar pattern. Please do a version in larger sizes.

I’m not sure that we have plans for adjusting this pattern to larger sizes. Feel free to check out our full selection of adult size sweaters here! Also, I might suggest that you check out the Sweatshirt Sweater here, which would maybe be somewhat easy to add some fair isle to the top of the yolk.

Thank you so much for asking! The answer is yes, we are developing a new design for older kids, although the exact age range hasn’t been decided. The release date is also to-be-determined, but the design is definitely in the works!

Thanks again for asking and please let us know if you have any more questions!

It looks like the mink skeins of crewel yarn are no longer available? Can you recommend a different yarn to use? It would be nice to just buy the minis skeins as so little of each is needed. I love the yellow colorway

You are quite right! We now recommend using Koigu’s KPM mini skeins. They come in a huge number of colors and a similar gauge to the Blue Sky Royal Alpaca. We love all of the fabulous combinations that can be created with this yarn!

Thanks for writing in! This is a tricky part of the pattern and can be a bit confusing. For those having trouble with this part, as I have, I have a solution! Firstly, you will knit up until your first set of grafting stitches. Match up your grafting points for the sleeve and the body. Next, you will slip the sleeve stitches on to your left needle, making sure you are keeping the sections for grafting together. Now knit across the sleeve stitches. Knit across the back and do the same for the next sleeve. You are now oriented! I hope this helps!

Your explanation was very helpful however I need some hand holding as it’s my first sweater.

Does the “grafting point” on the body begin at those 10 stitches I put on the stitch holder? So I knit for 25(28,32) stitches then I start knitting the 36(40,44) stitches of the sleeve, leaving those 10 underarm stitches on both body and sleeve off to the side on the stitch holders?

Thanks for the question. You’ll want to knit across the front until you get to the stitches on hold for your body. Next, you’ll pick up a sleeve and match the 10 held body stitches to the held sleeve stitches. Using your working yarn from your body you’ll want to knit across the sleeve stitches, joining them to the front body. Repeat this for the other sleeve after working across the back and you’ll have joined all the pieces. Hope this helps! Feel free to write in again if you have any other questions!

I love this sweater and now want to make one larger than 12 mo, I need about 18 month. I was wondering if I could use a different yarn with different gauge and it would be larger? If so, can you suggest a yarn?
Thank you,
Susan

Thanks for the question. For an 18 month old size and a chest measurement of approximately 24″ I suggest you follow the largest size for a gauge of 6 stitches per inch and the smallest size for a gauge of 5 stitches per inch. Hope this helps!

Could you tell me if I am supposed to continue the raglan shaping while knitting the yoke fair isle pattern? The pattern says nothing about this although I am supposed to end up with 60 stitches less. And also the pattern says to remove the markers for the sleeves. Thanks!

Hello Jamie,
Thank you for writing in! For the yoke there are K2tog’s in your 5 stitch fair isle chart. When you are finished with the Fair Isle portion of the Yoke you should have 82(91,100) stitches. I hope this clears things up. Let me know if you have any further questions!
-Marilla

Hello Rosemary,
Thank you for this great suggestion. I will certainly pass it along! In the meantime may I suggest checking out our Friendly Fair Isle Sweater Pattern. I know it is a pretty deferent look, but still very cute and it comes in Toddler and Kids Sizing.
I hope this is helpful!
-Marilla

I made this for my grandson in Koigu using the mini skeins for the yoke. It turned out really well and they loved it. I’d add a picture but not sure how. It’s a pretty easy pattern and Koigu is great to work with. Wondering if line weight could be substituted?

Hello Theresa,
I’m so happy to hear you had such a great experience! Line weight and Koigu kpm have a similar gauge so I think it should work. As always, I would still knit a gauge swatch before jumping in to your project.
Let us know how it goes!
Warmly,
-Marilla

Hello Sophie,
Thank you for your interest. This pattern certainly would be adorable on a 5 year old. We do not currently have this patter in a larger size, but I will pass along your interest.
Happy knitting!
-Marilla